Agri Aware and UCD school of agriculture and food science have developed a new experiment video series to aid Leaving Certificate agricultural science students in response to the challenges of school closures and changes to the curriculum.

Students and teachers have missed out on vital lab time as a result of COVID-19 restrictions over the past 12 months.

The ‘Essential Experiments’ series contains over 11 experiments that cover the mandatory topics such as soils, milk quality and crop science.

The experiments were carried out by UCD professors and staff.

Invaluable resource

The videos will be shared with teachers nationwide, who can then share them with their students.

They will also be made available for free on Agri Aware’s YouTube and social media platforms.

Agri Aware chair Alan Jagoe said: “The videos come at a time where teachers and students are in real need of extra digital resources as schools were closed for over two months this year and over three months last year.

“We hope that these videos will help bring the lab experience alive for students and act as an invaluable resource for them in the run-up to their Leaving Cert exam.”

Irish Agricultural Science Teachers Association (IASTA) PRO Johnny Gleeson said the new resources will help teachers and students in years to come, not only this year where access to labs has been an issue.

Check out the Essential Experiment videos here.

More videos will be added to the Agri Aware YouTube channel over the coming weeks.